The Gecko's Revenge
by OnyxDrake
Summary: Ginny Griffin's taking revenge on Starling City's underground, but her vendetta against a Vertigo dealer causes her to cross paths with the mysterious Hood.


Gravity is irrelevant. No. Really. I've often felt it applies to other people, but then again, I haven't earned my nickname for nothing. Gecko, they call me. Not even my mum calls me Ginny anymore. I'm sixteen and I'm part of the wildlife here in the Glades.

Jo-Jo messed with the wrong girl when he sold my sister May a batch of bad Vertigo. Then again, all Vertigo is a bad batch, if you ask me. I've seen what it's done to many of my mates from when I still used to attend school. Wouldn't touch the stuff myself. Besides, how the hell am I supposed to live up to my name if I'm too busy chasing butterflies only I can see, if you know what I mean?

Tonight Jo-Jo's gone to Verdant, and it takes me half an hour to jimmy the lock at the service entrance. The music is awful. That's if you could call that electro stuff music. It sets my teeth on edge and makes me want to bash my head repeatedly against the wall. And mum says my taste in music sucks. The venue's pretty neat, however. It's got a slight urban industrial edge to it if you can excuse all the posh types in their heels and glittery mini-dresses who figure they're slumming it down here in the Glades for the night.

When that Queen guy first opened the club, we didn't give him six weeks, but he's been going for six months, which ain't that bad. Many places don't even last half that time. And his doorman is sharp—there's no way I could have passed for twenty-one, and basically, yeah, why I'm sneaking in round the back.

But Jo-Jo's more like eighteen going onto thirty, the smarmy bastard. He thinks he's so clever dressing up to hang with the older, preppy crowd. Got himself not one but two upmarket girlfriends, if not a few other stupid gashes on the side.

Wonder how many of them know what he does so he can afford that BMW X5 he's so bloody holy about.

I'm a shadow sliding from one dark pool to another. I'm petite, a "mere slip of a thing" I've heard some people say, and it's taken years of practice to ensure that no one notices me. My prey is completely clueless. Tonight's the night—and his death will be all over the news. I can see it already: "City man knifed in club" followed by "Knifing victim revealed as prominent Vertigo dealer".

This gecko bites. The blades I prefer are small but sharp. They're excellent for slicing, piercing and, of course, throwing. All it takes is a quick puncture wound in the kidney. By the time people figure out what's going on, I'll have melted away. Besides, they'll all be so focused on poor old Jo-Jo, who'll soon be bleeding out on the dance floor, they won't even notice me slipping away quietly.

The music pumps, and the beautiful people jostle each other like cattle going to the slaughter. Jo-Jo has his arm slung all casual-like around some blond floozy's waist. She laughs with her mouth wide open and her lips are scarlet.

My blade slides easily out of its sheath and into my palm, and I stalk forward. Jo-Jo has eyes only for the blonde. He's given her friends two trips each, and I can't help but wonder whether those green-and-purple capsules contain death or a joyride, or possibly a little mix of both. It's so difficult to tell how people will react to this shiz.

Vertigo doesn't always kill. Some people can take a few trips every once in a while and they never get hooked. Some people, like May, took Vertigo once. And now she's dead. You never know. Some people even take the stuff for years and they're absolutely fine. Many begin a slow descent into madness. I hate Vertigo. I hate what it does to people.

More than anything, I hate Jo-Jo, and people like him, for making money out of others' misery. After tonight, Jo-Jo won't be smiling none. I can hardly wait. My muscles bunch, my breathing is measured, and I'm almost ready to strike—

A hand clamps down on my shoulder and before I can respond, my world cuts out.

I blink awake outside. For some bizarre reason I'm lying on the ground, flat on a piece of cardboard, and there are two men peering down at me.

"She's definitely underage," says the black guy.

A frown plays across the blond guy's forehead. He's holding one of my blades; the other eleven are fanned out on the ground next to me. Ugh. I feel violated.

"You are a bit young to be playing with knives," the blond dude says. His hair is close cropped and matches his designer stubble. Strong, square features. Narrow face. Serious eyes.

Only then does my foggy brain fill in the missing details. Oliver frigging Queen is crouched next to me examining me like I'm some weird litter someone's dumped in an alley.

"Wha—" I manage to sit up, but my world is totally spinning and I want to throw up.

"What were you doing inside my club?" Oliver asks.

"None of your business!" I snap and snatch at my blade.

He's quick and pulls the knife just out of reach. "I don't tolerate criminals in Verdant."

"Then why did you allow Jo-Jo inside?" I sneer at him.

He does not prevent me from scooping up my other blades, which I then quickly sheath in all the usual hiding spots.

"Mr Queen," the other man starts, "Are you going to let her take—"

Oliver holds up his hand to still his friend. "It's okay." His gaze doesn't stray from me. "You're not coming back into Verdant, do you hear?"

I nod, and feel the warmth of my embarrassment crawl up my cheeks. What the hell just happened? Somehow Oliver caught me, knocked me out, and now he's talking to me like I'm some kid. Stupid rich dude. Has no idea what the real world is like.

Yet he passes me my last blade, hilt first, and for a moment I fool myself into thinking that I catch an inkling of grudging respect in his expression.

He does nothing to prevent me from going, and the last I hear before I'm out of earshot is his grumpy friend bitching about the fact that kids like me shouldn't be on the street.

Things haven't always been this rubbish. Once upon a time I had a family too, until Dad went to sea and never came back, and Mom started working at the "massage parlour". Mel and I still went to school up until three years ago, but then Mel began to hang out around a bad crowd and I? Well, I started doing what it is I'm doing now.

Actually, I blame my mate Dylan. He was into the whole parkour thing but since his fall, I haven't stopped like he's had to. I'm better than he ever was. My legs might not be long, but I'm elastic. Dylan's the one who started calling me Gecko. It kinda stuck.

It didn't take me long to get inspired by this whole "Hood" vigilante vibe either. Of the few things I've kept from Dad has been his collection of throwing knives. The inside of my bedroom door looks like a warzone thanks to my practice, but I can hit a fly at twenty paces.

Mom's never home to complain about the never-ending _thunk-thunk-thunk_ of my throwing the knives. And Mel, well, she's past caring there where she is in the loony bin.

So, yeah, forgive me if the whole going to school and getting a proper education thing has lost its charm. It's far better for me to make holes in drug dealers and other low lives. Means I'm actually doing something in this broken city. One I'm done with Jo-Jo, there's a whole list of A-holes

Every time I lose hope, I take out the antique locket that Mel used to wear around her neck that I took from her when she was admitted. Inside is a lock of her hair—the smallest snippet that I picked up from the floor from that day when she tried to hack it all off with Mom's old sewing scissors.

If I can save others from sharing a similar fate, then my sacrifice has been worth it.

There's another Vertigo-related death the day after Jo-Jo's near miss with my brand of justice. It's all over the news. Some lady and her friends, who'd been at Verdant that night. Bet Oliver's pissed about the bad press for his club.

A quick cutaway shot shows him getting into that fancy car of his, and the big black dude who's his henchman pushes reporters out of the way when they get too close with their mics.

"Mr Queen is not available for comment," says the newsreader, with a slight sneer.

Then they cut to an earlier recording—the one that was on last week, of Oliver vowing that he would prevent further incidents like this from occurring. Well, that just sucks, dude. Now if only he'd let me slice Jo-Jo, then it'd be one less low life scum to worry about.

They call him Dan the Man, Jo-Jo's right-hand man. He's not number one on my list, but he'll do. He's puzzled by the fact that someone slashed his tyres while he was dropping off a package in one of the Rocky Towers. Even for the Glades, it's the pits, and I'm pretty sure Dan the Man hasn't planned on sticking around. Now he doesn't have much of a choice.

A million years ago, I might've found someone like him cool, but now I only see cruelty in the twist of his lips and coldness in his eyes. He's on his phone, no doubt arranging for one of his mates to collect him or help with his car. He stupidly parked the damn thing around the side of the building, where there are not a lot of people hanging out. It's a sweet set of wheels. It was almost a sin for me to make those lovely slashes in the tyres.

Then again, someone had to bring Dan the Man down a notch or two. The way he leans against the door bitching to his mate about what he's going to do to the kids here at the Rocky Towers once he finds out who took a knife to his baby. So he's completely clueless when I approach him.

I draw the knife across his throat before he can turn to see who's melted out of the shadows. By the time he collapses with a wet gurgle, his body jerking as his life oozes out of him, I'm one with the darkness and putting distance between us.

My hands shake as I wipe clean my blade. My first kill. My breath comes short and my pulse hammers. It will take me a while to wip Dan the Man's startled expression from my mind.

I've made a mistake. Okay, I admit it. Besides killing Dan the Man. I still feel the slide of the blade into skin and half of me wishes there is a way that I can undo that. Purely because I don't consider myself a killer. A sneak and a thief, yes. But not a killer. It's one thing to plan the action, but quite another to deal with the emotional baggage.

But, besides snuffing that dude, Jo-Jo has gone to ground like the frightened rat he is, like he knows he's next. So I wait and watch. The media is strangely silent on the matter, and my paranoia gnaws at me.

What if they know? They being the police, and other faceless, nameless people behind the scenes, the ones just waiting for me to make one false move.

I am a shadow. During the day I bury myself in the cocoon of my room. Mother keeps different hours to me. When I wake, I see signs of her passing in the apartment. Here a coffee mug, half-empty with rosy lipstick stains on the rim. There a mini-dress casually discarded on the couch. Sometimes I lie awake listening to Maxine's movements, but I don't rise to greet her or call her mother. Likewise, she doesn't knock on my door. The casual neglect would shock most, I'm well aware, but to me it's a small mercy. Neither of needs to know what the other has become in order to get by.

I'm the one who replenishes the milk in the fridge. I'm the one who makes the trip down to the laundry. She leaves a few twenties lying around on the kitchen counter every day or so. It's with these small, wordless gestures that we talk to each other.

"I'm fine. I'm still here."

We both know that we've changed.

Three days pass. I pickpocket one of the Roach's lads. Freddie shouldn't have walked with that roll of notes in his back pocket. Two hundred dollars. I buy myself a pair of second-hand climbing shoes.

It's on the fourth night, when I'm skirting the docks close to where the Chinese Triads have their headquarters, that I figure out I've grown a second shadow. Oh, whoever he or she is, they're clever, but you don't get to my age living on the fringe without developing an almost uncanny sixth sense. My second shadow is barely detectable, but sometimes I catch a glimpse out of the corner of my eye, or I hear the slight whisper of a soft-soled boot.

He's good, I decide once I've had a little more time to consider my tail. Very good. Because when I try the whole escape-across-the-rooftops thing that works on ninety-nine percent of any who've tried to best me, he's right there with me.

I lose him in the park, however, when I slip into the stormwater drain. He's too big to follow.

But it's a close thing. Very close. And I don't know whether I should appreciate the fact that I have an admirer, because another thought strikes me: he can catch me anytime he wants to, and he hasn't.

I can't outrun an arrow. There you have it.

A week after Dan the Man's appointment with death, and on a dark moon night where I am absolutely certain I am without a shadow, the bastard pins me to a wall down in Old Market Street.

Clever bastard. The arrow goes right through my jacket and before I can slip out of it, four more arrows strike into my clothing so that I'm pinned like a bug.

Then I see him. Or, rather, I catch a glimpse of his chin. Designer stubble. Eyes shadowed like he's wearing some sort of mask under that hood. His lips twitch, in the approximation of a faint smirk, as he approaches, bow in hand.

"You're tricky prey," he murmurs while he appraises me like I'm some sort of trophy.

I try to struggle, to slip out of my clothing, but I'm caught fast. So I glare at him instead.

He gives a short bark of laughter.

"What's so funny?" Fine, I'll speak.

"For one tiny girl you've caused quite a stir."

"What's it to you?"

"Why did you kill Daniel James?"

He must mean Dan the Man. "He sells Vertigo for Jo-Jo."

"Why not leave it for the police to deal with?" he muses. "You're only digging yourself into a whole world of trouble."

It's my turn to laugh. "You're a fine one to talk, Hood!"

"Fair enough, but how old are you? You can't be older than fourteen—"

"None of your goddamned business. Now let me down."

"Not until you promise to stop playing this dangerous game."

"Fine," I spit at him.

"Why don't I believe you?" He shakes his head, his mouth drawn in a taut line.

"Don't believe me then, but I know you. You only go for the assholes, the big guys. Let me do my thing and you stick to yours."

"You should be going to school."

Geeze, does he have any idea of how patronising he sounds?

Just then, I catch a glimpse of red-and-blue lights—a cop car, cruising by real slow. If all else fails, scream, and I let rip the way I know will be guaranteed to get attention.

"Fire!" I shriek.

For a moment the Hood looks like he's about to jerk me deeper into the shadows, but then the cop car halts and the Hood lets go of me. He's gone, so quick I can't track him. Car doors slam and I am just able to rip myself free before the police officers investigate the scene.

A few arrows stuck into the wall with scraps of cloth must mystify them. I'm not the Hood's standard fare, and there's no body for them to send off with the coroner.

The Blood Twins are no one's friends, but they run for Jo-Jo, and that's more than enough reason for me to hunt them. Besides, they have a track record with their exes—yet another reason to erase them from the gene pool.

It's not so much a question of whether I'll help them to exit stage left, but rather when, I've got to be careful to keep the Hood off my tail.

The night I give the Blood Twins an extra smile each, the Hood catches up with me an hour or two later. We're facing each other across the rooftops, crouched like cats about to scratch and hiss about territory.

He could easily leap across the gap. By the time he's committed, I could already be halfway across the next rooftop—and I'm pretty darn sure he knows it.

And we could be caught in another round of hide and seek.

He wants to talk, and though I hate to admit it, there's a small part of me that welcomes this interaction. Who else would understand why my hands are shaking and my nerves are strung? _Killing is bad. Killing is wrong_, some dim part of me is whispering.

Yet logic informs me that I've done Starling City another favour tonight. I've saved another girl who's like my sister or another boy who would have done something stupid if he'd crossed paths with the filth I've just erased.

"You must stop what you're doing," the Hood calls out to me.

I give a soft snort. "What's it to you?"

"This...vendetta of yours is going to destroy you."

"You're a fine one to talk," I shoot back. I can't help the small wriggle of concern, that maybe he does have a point.

"There's a difference. I don't set out purposefully to end lives. I give them a choice. They're the ones who tip my hand."

"That sounds awfully like you're trying to justify it to yourself after the deed's done." Trust me, I've thought about it long and hard, but he doesn't need to know that.

"You don't want me to step in," he says. "I can't let you carry on like this. What if someone innocent gets hurt? What if _you_ get hurt?"

I scoff. "Geeze, grandpa, I don't recall asking for a babysitter. You've misjudged me."

"Ginny Griffin!" he calls out as I withdraw.

I freeze. The bastard knows my real name, which means there's a good chance he knows where I live. And he knows about my mom and what she does for a living.

"Screw you, Hood!" I yell back but I start running, hard and fast, to put as much distance between myself and the man as possible.

I expect him to give chase.

He doesn't.

The really crap thing is that I can't stay at home. Granted, I can't stay longer than it takes for me to make sure Mom has no idea that I'm not sleeping there anymore. That's not to say that I'm homeless. Far from it. There are half a dozen abandoned buildings scattered around The Glades that make perfectly good hideouts. I make damn sure not to stay in any of them long enough to draw attention to myself.

Judging by the news, however, there's something going down with a hit being called on one of the big property developers—and from the report it looks like the Hood is mixed up in it somehow. Which means he's got bigger fish to fry than one teen runaway. Or at least I'm pretty darn sure that's the term he'd use when discussing me with his mates.

Which makes this a perfect time to go after Jo-Jo. Only, I have to wonder at the wisdom of having gone for Jo-Jo's minions. My intended prey is still twitchy as all hell and next to impossible to track someplace where he's on his own and vulnerable.

Clever dude. Everywhere he goes, he has his driver make sure that the big X5 is parked somewhere too public.

My only consolation is seeing Jo-Jo banned from entering Verdant. Perhaps the Hood's had a hand in that. This gives me pause to wonder, since Jo-Jo seems to get in and out of all the other clubs with little effort. And, judging by the way he doesn't have to queue at glitz places like Lord's or Club Paris, he's still on the VIP list there. Which obviously means he gets the red carpet treatment and either he's a valued customer, or the bosses are in on his dealing and offer their approval.

Two young people die during this time. Peter Darren, 23, throws himself off the ninth floor of his apartment building, and Katja Phillips, 19, is fished out of the harbour. Both tested positive for Vertigo. It's all over the news—and the horrified-looking detective says they're following numerous leads. Yeah right.

Where were the cops when Mel walked into the middle ofa dual carriageway during the early morning rush hour? Nowhere. That is the point, and it is up to me now to finish what I started, no matter the cost, and ensure that Jo-Jo doesn't kill or drive any more people mad.

On the other hand, it can be argued that people are essentially stubborn, and will always find ways to engage in stupid, life-threatening behaviour, with or without all the Jo-Jos out there to enable them.

That's fine. But I have a personal score to settle on Mel's behalf. I'll reconsider once that douchecanoe has a few extra orifices in his body. Blood for blood.

The night I eventually catch up with Jo-Jo, he's visiting one of his girlfriends in Smaragdine Heights, one of the new apartment blocks bordering the Glades. It's one of those city improvement districts where the landlords and business owners are trying to fix the slow descent into derelict hulks and overflowing dumpsters. They're trying… It's difficult to tell whether they're succeeding.

At any rate, Jo-Jo's getting careless. Or maybe the fact that I haven't dusted any of his business associates during the past week has lulled him into a false sense of security. He's come to this place at least three times a week for the past month and a half. I've done my research. Have watched him kiss her silhouetted in the window.

Smaragdine Heights is all white walls with large, plate glass windows. Which sucks, since there aren't many hiding places for me. But the developer was so busy concentrating on the façade that they neglected the wasted space of the heart of the building—essentially a teeny tiny courtyard open to the sky where all the air-conditioning units are situated so they don't make the apartment block less appealing to potential owners. The back end is a forest of down pipes and tiny window ledges perfect for those of use who are not challenged when it comes to vertical surfaces.

I don't care what the woman's name is. Only that she doesn't believe in drawing her curtains and she stays on the fifth floor in one of the penthouse units.

It's the simplest thing to fool one of the residents into buzzing me in, especially when I employ my best little girl lost voice. The kindly old lady has absolutely no idea that she's allowed death to step over the threshold. From there, it's simply a case of sneaking into the dead space and scaling the inner walls. Thank you kindly, Google Maps.

Not a problem. All the bathroom windows face into this central area, and this time of the night, no one bothers to look outside. Apart from me, there's only a cat watching from a sill opposite me. Oh, and pigeon droppings. Everywhere. Yuck.

The bathroom window I'm looking for particularly is for unit 5B and it's way too small for a grown man, but the Gecko has no such issues. It takes a little bit of wriggling and then I'm in, and paused on the window ledge listening in on the sounds from within the apartment.

Awful R&B is playing and a woman laughs at some stupid joke that Jo-Jo cracks. His voice has a particular nasal whine that I despise.

Quiet as a cat, I drop to the tiles and pad into the passage. Two blades find their way into my palms. I haven't decided yet how I'll kil him but the woman is a problem. Only I don't get the chance to decide.

She's still calling over her shoulder as she trots down the passage, possibly toward the bedroom. I don't think. I act. I duck into the study as she passes, her heels clicking staccato on the highly polished surface.

The idea comes to me in a flash and I sneak in behind her. She's so busy rummaging in her bedside drawer that she doesn't notice me slip in. The key to the bedroom is on the inside of the door, and I snatch it.

She manages a started, "Hey you—"

Then I slam and lock the door so she's trapped in her bedroom. This will buy me enough time to do the necessary to Jo-Jo.

"Hey babe!" he calls out as I make my way to the lounge.

By this stage his woman is howling and beating her fists against the door and there is no way Jo-Jo would be ignorant of the fact that something has gone skew with his plan for sexy times tonight. I expect him to rush me, gun drawn, but even as I skid to a halt in the lounge, the front door slams and I curse.

He's taken the coward's path. What a bastard—not even sticking around to look out for his woman. Good thing I don't have beef with her save for the fact that she's shagging the useless flap of skin otherwise known as Jo-Jo.

There's no time for stealth. I rush after my retreating prey and let off another string of four-letter words when I get to the lift in time to see the door snick shut.

The stairs then.

I'm fast, but I'm not match for the lift. The front door sighs shut as I burst out into the lobby. The startled concierge is too busy gaping after Jo-Jo's retreating back to pay much mind as I dash after him. Hell, he didn't so much as look up when I came in. Dude's observation skills are like a brick.

Luckily the damned automatic doors open before I brain myself on them.

Jo-Jo's almost by his X5 once I loose the first knife. But it's not a killing blow. The blade sinks into the soft flesh of his left shoulder. The bastard's wearing a thick leather jacket which, at this distance, deflects the worst of the impact. The blade clatters onto the tarmac but Jo-Jo turns, gun drawn.

His eyes glitter with terror. "Drop the knife, girl."

My blade refuses to leave my hand and I glance from the 9mm Jo-Jo's holding to his cruel, handsome face.

"What? You deaf?"

There's not much time; I don't doubt that he'll shoot. A hiss and a meaty _thunk_ follows, and makes me spin around to face the hooded figure that stands a dozen paces behind me.

A body hits the ground with a thud and I spin in time to see Jo-Jo crumple, a green-fletched arrow sprouting from his chest like some sort of obscene plant. Right through the heart.

I should be relieved, but instead I'm wound tight. He's stolen my kill. When I turn to give the Hood hell, there's no one there. How the hell?

Thumping sounds from the glass of the apartment block's sliding doors. Another green-fletched arrow is jamming the mechanism so the concierge can't get out to interfere. His mouth opens and shuts like a fish's.

Without sparing a second glance for Jo-Jo, retrieve my blade, sheath it, and become a shadow.

The Hood saved me. At the last minute, when my indecision could have spelled my end.

Which can only mean…

I find the tracking device in the last place I look—Mel's antique locket—the one I wear close to my heart no matter where I go. As for when and how the Hood put it there, I don't know. But damn, he's good.

I'm going to have to become better.


End file.
